


Baby Steps

by Celesta_SunStar



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Banter, Gen, No actual ‘Edward Elric Swears’
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-14 08:55:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29539932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celesta_SunStar/pseuds/Celesta_SunStar
Summary: A working lunch for Team Mustang with Starfleet observers. Short follow up to Missteps.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	Baby Steps

**Author's Note:**

  * For [15Strawberries](https://archiveofourown.org/users/15Strawberries/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Missteps](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17674760) by [15Strawberries](https://archiveofourown.org/users/15Strawberries/pseuds/15Strawberries). 



> I don’t have the best knowledge of the Star Trek Original Movies but I have some, and the thought of this scene after Missteps by 15Strawberries was way too much fun. I do not own anything except the particular order of words in this story.
> 
> Please be kind, this is my first post to AO3.

Acting Colonel Mustang apparently had working lunches with his Command staff. (Or he did when there was enough food to go around. He held working coffee breaks, otherwise.) He also did so in the mess hall where anyone could come through while they were meeting, or even sit down and listen. Commander Spock visibly did not approve, but Lieutenant Uhura made sure to step on his foot to keep him from saying anything. 

“…and Mrs Ansill delivered her baby safely and has decided to name her Christine. Marcoh is double checking that our ‘most needed,’ ‘most wanted,’ and our ‘we’ll take it if we can get it’ lists are current for transmission to Enterprise and Starfleet. He should be finished in at most half an hour.” The cranky sounding and overworked Doctor Knox finished his concise speech with a savage bite into his sandwich. 

Colonel Mustang just nodded to the man and was glancing around the table, possibly to find someone who was not busy chewing, when the blond child that was the acting Chief Engineer stomped into the room and threw himself into the empty seat at Colonel Mustang’s left. “Hey y’all,” he greeted the table as he leaned over to snag a sandwich from the tray in the middle of the table. He then went on to nod and greet “Colonel Bastard,” with a slightly mocking tone of voice.

“Major Brat,” Colonel Mustang responded with the same tone before Spock could do anything but consider if Lieutenant Uhura had enough leverage in her current position to break his toes or just bruise them. “How is generator five?”

“Darius is doing the last of the fine tuning. It decided to continue limping along. I can probably get a week to ten days more out of it without any new parts, but more than twelve is a no go. Four and one are holding steady, three is performing brilliantly after I got a chance to completely take it apart and put it back together properly, and two is having some problems keeping up with the weird fluctuations in the science lab sector. I’m thinking that if we reroute some power to keep labs two and seven and maybe five operational, we should shut down that sector and find what’s causing it. Having something else blow when we could have fixed it is fucking stupid.” The child tossed his head in an annoyed manner before taking a bite.

“Sensible,” the Colonel allowed “Falman?” 

“Lab five should remain online if we can manage it, but Edward is right that two and seven are the priority. After that three should not be left too long, but I don’t foresee any major problems from the interruptions.”

“Major Elric, would you like Breda or Havoc?” The blonde frowned as he chewed.

“Havoc for the shutdown and transfer, then Breda for the checks.” He shook his head again. “Heinkel knows what I want so make sure you’ve got him by the time you have the scientists start their shutdowns.”

“Got it, Boss.” The larger, darker, blond stood and saluted the table “Chief.” He tapped four people on the way out who immediately stood and followed him.

Colonel Mustang turned to his young subordinate and evidently noticed something since his voice came out a little quieter. “Alphonse?”

He boy huffed in answer. “One of the fighters got dinged up so he’s going over it.” He paused for a second eyeing his commanding officer, then turned his back to him sitting sideways in the chair. “Here, you can be actually be useful for a minute instead of looking pretty and pretending to be in charge.”

It was then immediately apparent that the problem was a braid that had probably gotten caught on something and was now halfway falling out. Colonel Mustang fastidiously cleaned his hands and pulled the tie the rest of the way out; combing through the locks to untangle them and starting a french braid. “I can assure you, brat, that I am the one in charge.”

“Nah, we all know that Hawkeye is the one in charge. She’s just using you as a figurehead.”

“Appropriately cast in bronze as a rearing stallion I assume.” The boy snorted as the Colonel tied off the braid, a hand running down his hair in a quick check.

“If you’re a stallion, should I be pimping you out to other long haired people on base, or keeping you to myself?”

“You can take the boy off the farm...” Colonel Mustang muttered, but the next statement came out louder, “I can get my own dates, thank you. I would much rather my secret ambition to be a hair dresser not get out. Now, finish eating, take something to Alphonse before we have a hungry Elric on our hands, have him give me an ETA for his report, deal with the fluctuations in the science labs, and catch a nap before the next crisis. You know you get cranky if you go over seventy-two hours without sleeping, and you are approaching fifty now.”

There followed a flood of unprintable foul language, the least profane of which included the phrase, “not a fucking toddler, dammit!” at least until a steaming mug that smelled like coffee was shoved into the boy’s hand. 

“Eat, Major Elric. Hughes, what can you tell me about the general attitude of the base personnel, military and civilian?”

*

“After Major Elric finished and was leaving, Acting Colonel Mustang yelled at him to ‘Take a nap, Ed.’ The boy rather childishly responded ‘Nag, nag, nag’ and the whole table yelled ‘Mustang’ in response and started laughing. They are hardly in a situation where levity should be encouraged.” Spock reported later on the Enterprise.

Kirk was fighting (badly) to conceal his own humor at the situation his Commander had found himself in. He managed to master himself after a few moments, and gave Spock a faux solemn face. “Colonel Mustang has held his people together admirably and as this is not our command; I am reminded of a very, very old Earth saying that fits extremely well here. ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’” He gave Spoke a moment to ponder that. “Now, I suppose we will have to organize a tour of our science bay after this whole mess is cleaned up. Why don’t you take care of that then?” 

After they were dismissed, Spock took a moment to consider the phrase again. ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ was appallingly bad grammar, but the sentiment was sensible. He would keep it in mind going forward.

*

End Baby Steps

**Author's Note:**

> I prefer a ‘banter’ relationship between Ed and Roy to a ‘kill each other’ relationship; and I believe that Ed would only let people he absolutely trusts touch his hair (ie: Alphonse.) Team Mustang knows this.
> 
> This was fun, but I have no idea where things might go from here and not enough Star Trek knowledge to take it further. Maybe someone else can take it further?


End file.
